To sum up the prevailing wisdom: during the Crusades, an expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam. Not so. As will be seen, the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations: by centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places.

But only eighty years after Muhammad’s death in 632, a new Muslim empire had displaced Christians from most of the Middle East, all of North Africa, Cyprus, and most of Spain

The belief that once upon a time Muslim culture was superior to that of Europe is at best an illusion.

During the eighth century came the next step in the agricultural revolution: the adoption of the three-field system, wherein farmland belonging to each village was divided into three plots60 and each farmer had his own strip in each of the three fields. One plot was planted in a winter crop such as wheat; the second, in a spring crop such as oats (an especially important crop once the horse became the primary draft animal), legumes (such as peas and beans), or vegetables; and the third plot was allowed to lie fallow (unplanted). The next year the plot that had been fallow was planted in the winter...